JUST ANOTHER CATACLYSMIC DAY
by evan como
Summary: Season 3: As the Fang Gang and Holtz regroup immediately following the events of "Lullaby", they come to recognize that there's no place to hide from the flux of Prophecy... or one's life.
1. Default Chapter

  


Disclaimer: the author does not claim ownership to the characters or plot development mentioned from "Angel" or "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" or "Fray". These properties expressly belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Greenwolf Corporation, 20th Century Fox Television, WB Network, the UPN Network, Dark Horse Comics, etc. Any other characters contained in this original story are the author's. 

Historical Note: Season 3: the action in this story takes place after "Lullaby". Take fair warning: There is implied infant murder within this fic. Although not written explicitly, it happens. If you pale with such subject matter... 

Author's Note: Outlined and half-written before "Dad" aired, I have to admit that I got a bit Tim'd. Still, I wanted an outing with Holtz and I got one, but, oh how I wish this had written itself as quickly as it came to the imagination. I'd forgotten what writing long fic was like. 'Tis both maddening and fun galore! It will be nice to get my life back. 

Tunes: "Walls of Silence" by October Project & "My December" by Linkin Park 

Dedications: I used to write dedications all the time, but for whatever reasons, I'd stopped. I think it may be time to begin anew. "Lullaby" was one of the most amazing pieces of dramatic television ever [ignoring the rankness that was going on with Gunn's character, here]. The conversations were real and I came to like Darla. And, it was oh! so fabby to see a smart, conversational Angel -- the guy who'd ceased to exist after "Epiphany", rather than the 'comic book' version. 

So, to Tim Minear. It took a while, but now I believe in your godness. 

Secondly, this goes out to Keith Szarabajka. What an actor! And what a nemesis! With forceful quiet, he gives Daniel Holtz a true voice. It's difficult to be patient, waiting for the payoff of his arc. All I know is that I do not want him gone; I'm hoping that his fate will be heroic. No matter what becomes of him, I know that within the JossVerse characters do not die. 

Unless they're messily obliterated. 

A nod also goes to Persia White, the guest actress from "Belonging". 

Thanks: to Wiseblood for being the keeper of one angry young man's voice. I have yet to read other than tantalizing tidbits of "Mirabile Dictu", the preamble for this story, yet I already know it's magnificent and I am majorly honored. 

e.c. 31 dec 01   
  
  
  
  


JUST ANOTHER CATACLYSMIC DAY   
by Evan Como 

  
  
  
  


Dark blonde lashes screened his bronze-colored irises from the over bright television screen. Monotonous images assaulted Daniel Holtz while banal prattle, passing for the delivery of local news, insulted his intelligence. A young male reporter -- over-bundled in a jacket making him look like a dandelion puff -- stood with the sun rising over one shoulder while dramatically brandishing one arm at muddy water trickling down a paved slope. From the footage he'd been watching pertaining to the events of the last decade, Holtz had begun to perceive how the everydayness of life was prissied up for the viewer. 

It would not have surprised him had an entire olive tree been deposited at the reporter's galoshed feet. 

During a sobersided twist of his head, the wavy hair at his nape was ruffed by his collar. Holtz' body, his emotions, were as stiff as his oil-cloth coat, dried now. 

For over an hour, the goings-on had been about inclement weather -- pitiful in comparison to the European tempests he'd withstood. Los Angeles was beside herself over the novelty of the crying heavens. In between that overreaction, there were innocuous reports of a war that Holtz nodded at, not in agreement with the incursion, but for want of a region far more recognizable than this Western world into which he'd been quickened. He'd been asleep in the arms of Eternity while the world had devolved. 

He could not -- nor did he want to -- relate to men who celebrated whoredom and exalted perjurers to highest office or found the extraordinary mundane. If embracing modern manhood meant supporting demonic concerns or even accepting that septuplets -- born a trimester early when each newborn weighed less than his soggy right stocking -- were not an aberration, he would gladly embrace the day his existence was no longer required. 

He anticipated that last dawn on earth. And, more so, completing his chore. 

Holtz rose, slogging onto booted feet, and scratched externally at his thoughts. Movements deliberate, footfall considered, he was a man practiced at measuring his opinions, words, and actions. All the better to prevent anyone -- man or demon -- from learning his truths. 

"But you knew, bastard," Holtz muttered, gritting his teeth. He knuckled his facial hair. "Or was it merely that you guessed? And guessed much, much too well?" 

-0- 

Cordelia's focus glanced off the rear view mirror and through the Plymouth's steamy rear window. A bandwidth of dawn glared, sandwiched between toothy buildings and the monstrous storm clouds swooping in from the Pacific. Gusts of wind drummed across the vinyl convertible, making it waffle. She drew a worried breath and exhaled, "Wes." 

The driver glanced to his right and down. His brows pulled together. "Gunn?" the Brit prompted. 

A brown fist led by its index finger jutted past Cordelia's chin. "Left. Up here, past the light," Gunn signified. 

Wesley removed his foot from the accelerator. Behind him, Fred adjusted a heavy blanket over Angel's head, tenting the baby in his arms; and, as if Wesley had eyes in the back of his head, after she finished the car was turned as directed. 

Cordelia tch'd. "Great. Did we really need another alley?" 

Gunn huffed. "Look, y'all'ready tried every motel between birth central and, well, Central for a place to lay low. So, beggars? Ain't no choosin' left." 

Gripping the front seat between Cordy and Wesley's shoulders, Fred scooted into the tether of her seat belt. "This will be fine, Gunn," she stage-whispered. "We just need to be in a bad-guy free zone." 

Seemingly in agreement, the infant fussed. Angel lowered his face and beheld the entire world, wriggling in his arms. "Shhhhh, Baby," he hushed as two tiny fists boxed out -- at the stuffy interior and an adoring father's nose. 

"Just tell me where," Wesley sighed. 

Cautiously riding the brakes, he steered the heavy black car through the valley of industrial buildings. At the mercy of both earthquakes and economics, the area lay wasted. With the powerful V8 engine's lower gear ratio sounding off the eroding brick walls, the blackwall tires cut through thin terra cotta ribbons lacing the oily stream created by litter-dammed storm drains. 

Gunn looped his long arm behind Cordy and double-tapped Wesley's shoulder. The Plymouth squawked to a stop. 

Her hand held by Gunn's, Cordy took her time exiting. She aimed the toe of her boot above the ocean of potholes until she spied a high bar of asphalt. "It better be safe, 'cause it sure isn't pretty," she said, squinting. Below the dim light filtering over the flat roof, run-off darkened the faded, painted words: "Egyptian Knitting Mills". 

After a third hardy pull, the door set into the rusted roll-up loading access opened freely. Wesley peered inside. Cordelia's "So, are we innies or outies?" was an articulated variant of his own deliberation. 

"It's the one I remember as best," Gunn apologized, sweeping his arm at the more meager real estate. 

At Wesley's unspoken approval, Fred reached in towards the back seat. "C'mon, Angel," she coaxed, arms eager to receive the child. 

But Angel swept past her without assistance, already a natural at the caregiver thing. 

-0- 

With both thumbs resting on the shores of his sunken eyes, fingerpads -- still to be calloused -- roamed gingerly about Holtz' face, avoiding the recently-acquired scar marring his high forehead. Blind, except to his thoughts, he plodded a course through the room by the heat of blazing torchieres. Senses that had fared his hibernation in tact had become even more acute. 

"You came to me and I asked you no questions, Sahjhan." Deliberate impudence sharpened Holtz' usual, blunt delivery. 

Coral-brown earth crunched beneath his ponderous steps. He opened his eyes, precisely at the figure slouching against the arched entrance to their underground refuge. "But, now I want answers." 

Sahjhan ugh'd impertinently. He moseyed into his Warrior's path. "I should have known you were going to end up being a squelcher and made my pact with Don Raul. Sure he was minus an eye, deaf, and lame, but he was tenacious." 

Holtz sidestepped Sahjhan, dropped his hands and halted. "I will not renege. I may not know exactly what I will do, but you are not my master to tell me when to begin." 

Three long backstrides brought the demon face-to-face with Holtz. He flourished his hands like a vaudeville magician. "I am master enough to reconsider my operative, though." 

In consideration of the comment, Holtz' inhale puffed out his round chest. The laughter rumbling from his diaphragm never escaped his larynx. "No, Sahjhan, the only thing you'll continue to do is to make idle threats. Or, as you've boasted, will you truly traverse the dimensions to entreaty Don Raul? And allow me to finish my sullen drink?" 

Holtz, implacable, studied Sahjhan. Even firelight did not color the head-taller being's complexion. He was the gray of spider webs and toadstools, of vampire residue moistened to slime. From the dark cryptic letters freckling his cheeks to the deep, irregular crevices faulting his flesh, Sahjhan characterized inhumanity. 

Including his speech patterns, spoken like jest. "OK. You got me. You were always my first choice," the dimensional lord conceded, clasping hand over hand over his abdomen. 

Holtz narrowed his focus. Sahjhan feined indifference. 

"Flattery will not assuage my curiosity, demon," Holtz seethed. Digging both hands into the pockets of his drover coat, he spurned both the vacillator and the broadcast, each a mockery of morality. 

-0- 

Angel held his son close to his chest as they trampled through Fred's exhalation. "It's too cold in here," he noted. 

Cordelia tugged the belt of her fawn-colored leather trench. Crinkling her nose, she elaborated, "Not to mention, schtinky." 

"Which, of course, you had to mention," Wesley retorted under his own visible breath. He swiped at the top of his head. "It appears that the roof only leaks here. That's promising." 

"And cold," Angel reiterated. 

"I know, Angel." Wesley looked away from the grimy skylight and past Angel's insistence. He fingered aside a blanket fold and smiled. Inside the pouch of warmth there was no mistaking to whom this child belonged -- not even old enough to possess muscle coordination and already with those squirmy eyebrows. Staggered by emotion, Wesley grasped for the stability of Angel's shoulder. 

But the vampire had already slipped out of reach. 

"We could burn these," Cordelia suggested, kicking newspaper across the floor, sweeping up. 

Gunn hollered from the loft, "Not after you sop up all that grease from the floor with 'em. And everything else here looks too damp to burn." He clomped across creaking wood planks. "Hey! We got a cat and kittens up here. We cool on the rodent tip, at least." 

Wesley tapped the radiator set against one of the iron support beams. Water leakage dribbled onto his eyeglass lenses. He frowned upwards. "Gunn? Any chance there's gas in here?" 

Avoiding the stairs by using the handrails of the metal steps he'd climbed, Gunn's half-gloves squealed during his slide to ground level. "WYSIWYG, English," he reported, clapping metallic dust from his palms. 

Fred pattered across the concrete floor. "Look, you guys! I found cow chips to burn!" 

Cordy's hazel eyes widened. "Those must be some serious kittens, Gunn." 

Wesley accepted Fred's find and sniffed at it. "Astonishing! This *is* a cow chip." 

"And, oh! so toasty," Cordy drolled. "I'm not even gonna ask how you're a dung expert, Wesley. And don't -- " she tossed her wrist " -- tell me there's mystical writing on it, too." 

Fred pinched the hard disc out of Wesley's hand and, after a quick spell-check, offered it to Gunn and another to Cordelia. "You can tell by the size and the shape. And, oh yeah!" Bouncing on her toes, the willowy brunette giggled. "The scent -- " 

"Spare me, Prairie Jane?" Cordy waved off Fred's proposal and towards a piece of corrugated tin siding. "Can we fire'm up in that metal box over there?" 

Being the recipient of a brusque elbow from Gunn disrupted Wesley's count of Angel's ardent strides. "Um... We'll still need a slight enclosure to trap whatever heat we can generate." 

Gunn picked up the rectangular bin's handle and kicked back a heel. "This'll work as a wall up there in the loft. And there's a vent, too." 

"Gunn!" Fred shouted. She rushed her oblivious associate and pushed him out of harm's way. 

The metal sheet tipped to where Gunn had been standing, warbled on one edge and slammed to the floor. The frigid, moist air barely muffled the resulting thwack. 

The baby sputtered once. 

Twice. 

And started to bawl. 

Angel fretted, "Hey, hey. C'mon. That was your first 'bang'. Your first *outstandingly loud bang that better not ever happen again, you guys*," he scathed to everyone outside of his cradling arms. 

But Cordelia, Wesley, Gunn, and Fred missed the pointiness of his decree, their eight eyes having been captivated by another four. 

One cow chewed its cud. The other slurped a nostril clean. 

Successful at quieting his charge, Angel grinned at Fred. "Cool! So, that means there's more 'pie where those came from, right?" 

-0- 

His gaze fixed on the pebbled stone ceiling, Holtz laid rigid on top of his freshly made bunk. An inability to sleep amplified the sewer system roaring through the walls. 

Impulsively, he flung one shoulder up and over the other. Momentum had him onto his feet and proceededing straightaway through the corridor. The mein of his reputation bufferered aside each creature stationed there. 

"Sahjhan!" he barked, blocking the human look-alike's final passage down the stairwell. 

"Well, Holtz. Good morning to you, too!" Sahjhan said, sardonically cheerful. 

Holtz raised his chin. 

"That's right!" The demon lord snapped his fingers by his temples. "If you didn't have manners two centuries ago, why would you have them now?" 

"I loathe sarcasm," Holtz spat. 

"No!" Sahjhan's shoulders dropped and his jaw followed suit. "Who'd of guessed it?" 

A cold gale yowled down from the street, making Holtz' graying hair shiver under the wafting torchlight in straw-colored waves. As he stood with his boots one stance apart and both forearms buckled above his waist, his clothes billowed. The open neckline of his oyster-beige blouse rose and fell evenly, expertly tailored by curt, shallow breaths. 

Irked, not impressed by the show of imperviousness, Sahjhan cooly breezed through the man. Less than a yard away, he glanced over his shoulder and stalled. The two massive attendants had remained on the staircase, shuffling their feet, reluctant to venture past the average-sized obstruction. 

In gradual turns, Sahjhan shed his human face and, with it, all sufferage. "MOVE!" he bellowed. 

The water misting his shape receded through his virtuality. Yet, the Grapplars did not budge. 

"Answer me." 

"The humans can't get Angelus either. You're on your own, my man," Sahjhan complied, inclining his head. 

Holtz exhaled sharply. 

Gouged by Sahjhan's barbarous words. 

The truth had assailed his ears as surely as the air had fled his lungs. Layered within the demon's speech patterns were all the subtle clues he'd missed. Sahjahn's statement hadn't been an immortal's toleration for the Angelus predicament; it had been ordinary pessimism. All those hours Holtz had spent in his keeper's company, he now knew had been misspent -- battling intolerable gibes with captious behavior. 

Slowly defeating himself. 

Within Holtz mind, "The humans can't get Angelus either..." tumbled repeatedly until its subliminal taunt was exposed: nor would he. 

Holtz thumbed against the nap of the dense bristle on his chin; resolve tautened the flesh across his cheeks. "If you had listened, you would realize that's not what I asked you," he countered. Inwardly capitulating, he turned towards the being with respect. 

After summoning forward the rest of the guards, Sahjhan turned as well. He unzipped his flak jacket. "'Others like her' meaning what? Specifically." 

Palms facing forward and fanned from his thighs, Holtz explained, "Humans who will fight beside me. Someone other than these..." He cut his eyes at the looming Grapplar contingent. 

They jawed their vicious tusks at him. 

"Of course there are humans -- " Sahjhan stilled his tongue and gouged his pockets with his fists. "I've already told you... there are limitations to what assistance I can provide." 

"You cannot enlist humanity for your cause, yet you have me," Holtz pondered aloud. Piloted by his observations, his wrist flicked, culling a blade from under his shirttail. He stabbed out. "And, thus far I'm limitless -- " 

Spurred by the sight of Holtz' arm pulling out of his body, Sahjhan cackled. "Why would you waste your effort when your weapon -- " But his words fell more quickly than the demon through his chest. 

" -- except where you're concerned." Newfound astuteness twitched at the trim of Holtz' beard. 

"For the moment," he asided in passing. He tipped his forehead at the open-mouthed demon being mirrored in the lifeless Grapplar's glassy eyes. Dismissively, Holtz off-handed the filthy dagger and it clattered onto the flagging unseen -- veiled by Sahjhan's ethereal form. 

-0- 

Wesley picked at his palm with a fingernail, raising a rusty splinter. By manipulating the metal sheet under foot and by hand, he and Gunn had erected the lean-to upstairs. Unexpectedly, the results of their primitive labors had begun corralling the heat rather well. 

"If I had some needles, I could knit you up a sweater real fast with that yarn I found," Fred drawled, index fingers somersaulting enthusiastically while completing another intricate knot for her macramé shawl. 

"I'm f- fine," Wesley chittered. He wiped his hands on his thighs, folded his arms, and crammed his fists under an armpit apiece. "But I don't think I've ever seen Angel quite so exhausted." 

Gunn puffed into the cove of his fingers. "Angel ain't even here, English." 

"He's very much here; just very focused on the child," Wesley was quick to excuse. Punishing his unruly bottom lip with his front teeth, he flexed his fingers, dismayed. "It's not only cold, but it's absolutely filthy in here." 

"Could be the barnyard. Ya think?" Cordy flipped up the cap of the baby wipes with both thumbs and tilted the dainty white corner to Wes. "But, if that kid survived Darla, this sludge hovel should seem like a chalet. Besides, it's not like he's going to spend his babyhood fighting off dust bunnies -- not with Angel as his dad." 

Thumb and forefinger at the ready, Wesley pecked for the corner of the towelette. And missed. He made another effort. But the plastic container bobbed from under his siege. "Cordelia! I'm too tired to play games," he adjured, poised to trounce; but the instant he struck, the top did, too. 

It rebounded off his forearm raised in defense. 

Fred froze. "Cordy!" she squeaked. 

Casting out an arm, Gunn hooked Cordelia by the shoulders before she swan dove. 

She recognized her name. She wanted to answer. But the Vision had already lassoed her from behind. It yanked really, really hard. Besides, once she was in one, there was no getting out. She soared... Backwards, backwards. Farther and farther from everyone she knew. Especially from her own identity. 

As always, still airborne, there was a split-moment of nothingness -- No weight. Not a sound. No feeling and then... 

Thunder clapped. Cordelia's skull fissured. An endless night arrived, constellation-free except for the stars of immense pain glimmering on the back of her eyelids. Her fingers and toes ballooned; they throbbed and threatened to explode. Every single tooth loosened at the root and rattled inside of her mouth -- a hollow sound like dice inside a cup or a skeleton wanting out of its prison. 

Agony electrified her nerves. Ligaments melted. Her elbows and knees ratcheted inside their sockets. 

And she put on two tons. 

Echoing from out of the vison-stream: a baby's cry. The wailing became louder: hunger, fright. Blood streamed relentlessly until she was tasting it, smelling it. Soaking in it. Gagging. With SurroundSound provided by the squalling infant, the mélange of images overcrowded Cordelia's mental screen. 

Innocence met doom. Demons with wrong-side-up saberteeth intimidated a terrified woman -- her identity concealed behind bedraggled, brown hair. 

Cordy gasped. 

The inarticulate baby shrieked for deliverance. 

Her Vision shaded violently. Blood. Too much blood... Too much blood... A vivid red tint to the whirlpool of... Love. Wasted love. Love, neglected. Love, desperately lost. So much love... So much love... 

Fred bolted. "I'll get Angel!" 

Wesley shouted, "WAIT!" and clutched her denim skirt by its belt loop. Doe-eyes mushrooming, Fred swerved off-balance to break Wesley's hold. He released her too promptly and she stumbled. 

Events overlapped without intervals; Wesley's motor skills sped wonkily to hell. He felt detached from the hand he saw grabbing for Fred's gangly upper arm and the horror in his heart duplicated that on her face. He was somewhat relieved that she evaded his assistance -- slender ankles unbuckling, coltishly graceful while scampering to freedom. 

Wesley contritely backed away. 

"We can probably do this on our own, English. Just like old times, right?" Gunn blithely speculated, his devotion to Cordelia replaced by worry over Fred's disappearance and Wesley's strange distancing. 

"Oooh," Cordelia croaked. Neck firm, she held her head still, certain the top of it was about to ski down her nose. "I mean -- Brrrrrrr! It's cold in here." 

Leaning a cheek towards Cordy's forehead, Gunn's brown eyes ping-ponged from Wesley to where he could make out Fred in the shadows. "I think Cordy's got a fever." 

Wesley gathered his associate's hand, less alarmed by her over-heatedness and more by her dilating pupils. Like coming out of a trance, she blinked lethargically and her face over-relaxed. Her lips vanished for a moment to return, slightly dewed. "Cordelia's not sick, but you are very warm," he swallowed. 

Cordelia chuckled humorlessly. "What do you know? I can add immune-to-extreme-freezing-temperatures-just-like-Angel as another perk of the Seer-hood!" 

She extracted her hand from Wesley's and fumbled for her pocket. Rolling the tip of her tongue across the back of her teeth verified they were firmly in place without a hint of their smoothness. 

She saw Gunn's hand holding her steady by one shoulder; watched the movement of Wesley's as his fingers probed beneath her bangs, along her cheeks, under her jaw. She could see all she wanted to; there was just a teensy problem with sensation -- 

"How come Angel's baby doesn't cry?" she asked absently, backing from under their check up. Closing both eyes, she turned inward and searched. 

Looking to feel anything other than infinitely sad. 

And infinitely numb. 

-0- 

The elements detonated and silvered the deep, charcoal sky. Under its concussive response, the tarpaper roof crackled. Unprepossessing of his command, Wesley's knuckles gleamed like ivory marbles rolling on the backs of his hands as he grappled each rung to the loft. He finished ascending just as lightning flared again; its accompanying ruckus sounded several long seconds later. 

Angel, oblivious to the fulmination, was motionlessly rounded about his son. "Are you asleep?" Wesley inquired softly. Finally?>> he hoped. 

The vampire's head toggled. A finger dented his lips before inviting Wesley near. "Whassup?" he whispered. 

Crouching closer, Wesley was careful not to disturb. No smile, no frown, yet the resting babe was a reflection of emotion. 

Not excluding his own. "Cordelia had a Vision," he exposited. 

No grimace, no excitement, Angel took the news objectively. 

The Brit continued, "And, I'm afraid, it was about the baby. We should probably -- " He winced and pursed his lips, appreciative for the shock of light that disguised what had actually been preparation for Angel's outrage. 

Angel merely readjusted both haunches and scratched an earlobe. 

"Another location would probably provide better cover for our abeyance, Angel." Playing the demon's advocate when it became apparent Angel wasn't going to, he countered, "Or perhaps by moving, we'll actually place ourselves in direct line of danger." 

"Whatever you think, Wes." 

Wesley scruffed his morning beard. Angel admired his son. 

Grey eyes leveling under the top rim of his rectangular glass frames, Wesley challenged, "You're not going to help with this decision, are you?" 

It was obvious Angel hadn't heard. Angel had already spent one moment too many away from attending his son. "You're the leader, Wesley. Lead. I'll follow," he finally replied. 

Wesley shivered and insisted, "But this is your child's life, Angel. I don't -- I can't --" 

The corners of his lips torquing sympathetically, Angel took a handful of the baby's cover and snugged away any last probability of draft. "What is it with us and cows?" 

Wesley's sleep-deprived thought processes whiplashed. "What?" 

"Downstairs. The cows. Cows again, Wes. And wherever there're cows, there's Prophecy. I don't get it. Especially considering, for at least the last century, I've generally been kind to cattle." 

Wesley laughed through his chattering teeth. 

Cocking his head, Angel studied Wesley with all seriousness. "Here. You need this more than I do." He shrugged off one sleeve, switched hands without bobbling the baby. The right side of the black leather coat rolled off the cap of his broad shoulder. "It's still kinda damp so you might not wanna get too close to the girls with it on." 

"Cordelia and Fred?" Wesley assumed. 

"Bessie and Elsie. They might think you're their long lost brother." Molasses-colored irises dripping askance, Angel kept the smirk-worthy addendum to himself. 

The residual humidity in the jacket made it comfortable, oddly warm. As an acclimating shiver coincided with another strobe of light, Wesley's memory was imprinted with an image of Angel at peace. He couldn't decide from which of the two faces their shared serenity originated. But, if an ancient could possess the meekness of a newborn, why niggle over sources? 

Rifting from the deepest shadows, the feline purred with her family. 

Wesley doffed a dimple at Angel and dismissed himself. At Angel's less-than-audible "Wes?" he held off his retreat. 

"Moo-ving along?" Angel heh'd. 

Wesley shot off his sternest glare and was willingly disarmed by a brilliant smile. The ex-Watcher nodded confidently. "Don't worry about having to go anywhere just yet. We'll trench here a while longer."   
  


Gunn held the ladder steady while Wesley climbed down. "Cordy ain't coming out this Vision like she normally do. She's keeping too much by herself," he hushed. "What'd Angel say?" 

Chin stiffly up and both hands dashed into the coat's pockets, Wesley replied, "It wasn't up to Angel. We're staying put." 

Pumping his chest out, Gunn revolted, "C'mon, English! We're neck-deep in this -- " 

"Gunn!" Wesley snapped. 

Swiping a palm across his bald head, Charles Gunn took four strong breaths. Misgivings refusing to raise up, he took four more. "Wes, you can't keep ignoring the 'what if's'. Human babies don't come from vampire tap; otherwise you and I both know there'd be babies everywhere." 

Humored, Wesley softened his reproof. "And we both know not every vampire has a role in Prophecy." 

"But that's only ever been a good enough excuse for you," Gunn disputed. 

Fingers steepled under chin, Wesley appraised the young man -- bright, budding antagonist and dark, ebbing friend. As if to illuminate Gunn's recent inconstancy, the building's ambience altered again -- animating the tacit hostility, dusking the deteriorating spunk. Long, feathered fingers were contrasted by their movement of vising Gunn's oversized jeans around his hips. Eclipsed of their sunny iridescence, those dependable brown eyes paled from recognition. 

"'What is' isn't an excuse, Charles," Wesley grieved. 

Gunn hurled a fist into his palm and held on. "So, whad'joo say were were gonna do about Cordy?" 

His patience frayed, Wesley criticized, "Your obstinance is unbecoming!" 

Gunn faked being punched in the gut and came up grinning. "You best check yourself, Wes. Ain't no way to win in direct competition with a baby." 

Without warning, Fred materialized out of the cloud of rancor between them. "You guys?" she interrupted, scraping under each fingertip with a thumbnail. She moved onto her hair, to braid and unbraid. 

Gunn stilled her hands. "Yeah, Fred?" He smiled kindly. 

"If we're going to stay, Cordy needs to eat. And the baby's going to need more formula," she dithered. 

Thoughts collected, Wesley opened his mouth to share but was cut off by the bias rain crashing against the building in isochronal waves. A leak in the ceiling skated down his neck. "It's never rained this hard in Los Angeles since I've been here." 

Cordelia held her hands above her head like an umbrella. "What about me? Don't forget, SunnyHell was mostly true to its name. Although there was that one freak snow storm that kept me from Christmasing in Vale," she added, melancholic. 

Loosely fitted in their frames, every window clattered. Wind slammed into the masonry and pounded on the door. The intermittent rain, falling more constantly, much harder, seeped into the building. 

"BUILDING DON'T WANT US HERE!" Gunn shouted over the pandemonium. He stepped on a pushbroom, angling it up. Searching the area while unscrewing it, he sought out another potential weapon. After tossing the stick at Wesley, he picked it a long metal bar and held it up to bat. 

The loading door banged countless times in succession and buckled. Prepared for... something, at least ... both men took position in front of the girls. 

"She's goin' to blow!" Fred screamed. 

By her command, the metal door yawed against its housing until the pedestrian door gave way. 

"OHMIGOD!" Cordelia squealed, hugging hold of Fred before the reedy young woman blew away. 

Water flumed and debris spewed, bucketed through the narrow entrance by the raging squall. One large object after another and another hurled against the tatty frame, banked access and rolled into the factory. Faces shielded by their free hands, Wesley and Gunn staggered forward to force the door shut with their backs. 

The rain diminished to a shower. The sound of the wind was displaced by Wesley's and Gunn's labored panting. 

"I am so over being wet!" Cordelia bleated. 

"Did you just, 'baaaaaa'?" Gunn asked. 

Wesley's broomstick wobbled. He jerked it, then jumped. "Dear God!" 

The four followed the line of Wesley's arm down to his staff's metal end and discovered a disheveled goat there, audaciously nibbling. 

"Oh, goody. I wonder what that goat means," Gunn deadpanned, full lips thinned. He pushed off of the door, leaving it ajar. 

It gradually opened wider and a trashbag on two legs bumbled through. "What you doing in my barn?" the muffled voice interrogated. 

Gunn hefted the cutting weight then, at the appearance of another goat, set one end down. Leaning on top, he dropped one booted toe over his arch and waited for a lamb to trot by. 

"Your barn? This is our hideout," Cordelia begged to differ. 

Wesley peeled the dark green plastic away, revealing the top of an adolescent boy's head. 

His shiny black hair fell in four sheets from his crown; a pair of lush eyelashes combed the shaggy fringe in front of his dark eyes. "It was my barn before it was your hideout," he said, more petulant than before. 

Fred petted the lamb's nose and fluffed water out of its curly coat. "Golly! She's so cute!" 

"Hey!" The boy possessively smacked at her. "I'm not gonna let you steal my animals." 

Gunn laughed. "Oh, right. Like you didn't steal 'em first." 

He stomped to his accuser and dropped his head back to glower. "I din't steal them. They just showed up!" 

"Son..." Wesley guided the boy away while closing the door. Snickering, he crossed his arms and arched an eyebrow. "Yes, of course. It's everyday that livestock magically appears in the inner city." 

Mimicking Wesley's stance, the boy shot off, "You got a better explanation, mister?" 

Fred intersected the stand off. "C'mon, Wesley, Gunn. It's not like there's chickens, too." 

The boy tugged the drawstring neckline of his poncho away from his throat. "The landlord lets me keep the chickens at the apartment building. That way, everyone gets eggs." 

"Sounds... Not any more plausible, but, OK," Fred accepted, tickled to hear the baby's gurgling from overhead. "What's your name, by the way? I'm Fred!" 

"Javi!" the boy introduced. With the lamb at his heels, he raced to the underside of the loft and stared at it with the intensity of X-ray vision. "Híjole! Those kittens sound just like babies." 

Gunn laughed; Wesley joined him. "That is a baby," they said. 

Javi shrugged and picked up lamb's rope leash. He shooed the goats towards the cows. "You hiding out because of what happened to that other baby, huh?" 

Wesley averted his eyes from Cordelia's. "What *other* baby?" 

"That baby they found at some cafeteria downtown," Javi called back. 

As if they could shield her feelings, Gunn and Fred double-teamed Cordelia. 

She circuited them, dug the keys from Wesley's shirt pocket and planted them into his palm. "Wesley, find out what baby!" 

After Gunn and Wesley rolled up the loading door, Gunn drove the Plymouth inside and cut the motor. Ignition on, he unlatched the convertible and hit its automatic control. The top accordion-folded into its boot while he dialed the AM radio for one of the all-news stations. 

_"... abducted from their nursery approximately two hours after arriving home this morning, the first casualty of the Pritcherd septuplets was found dead in downtown Los Angeles. In the wake of the discovery of the second body in the doorway of an abandoned Echo Park liquor store, the parents -- Lynn and Cyril Pritcherd -- have prepared a statement. According to the FBI and LAPD task forces assigned to the case, there has been no communication from the boys' aunt, Maria Cabott, who is believed to have disappeared with them. Or from the kidnappers, who have yet to issue a set of demands. We go, now, live to our reporter, Mirabelle Brandt..."_

"Turn it off," Cordy said, easing into the front seat and performing the task herself. She raised her knees and drew her legs into her chest. "Oh, God," she sobbed. She couldn't get small enough. "I heard it all right, but I saw it all wrong!" 

Wesley murmured, "Crying and crying -- " "And crying and crying -- ", Fred duetted. 

"Cordelia," Gunn said, his voice honeyed with empathy. 

Cordelia shunted from his reach. 

Gunn's eyes hardened and he rose up. "Wesley! How much you wanna bet this has sumthin' to do with Angel's devil baby?" One foot on the seat, he clutched the doorsill, prepared to jump out. 

Into Wesley, acting barricade. 

"You frontin'?" Gunn dared. 

"How badly do you want to find out?" Wesley rejoined, eyes reduced to slits. 

And that was that. Again. Wesley's steely 'tude piercing his mettle and Gunn eating the disagreement because there was just no throwin' salt on the man's jones for Angel's G.P. And it didn't matter whether the greater purpose blasted outa Cordy's brain or got chicken-scratched from another goddam Scroll, Wesley was its ho. Just going through the motions until he got some. No thang about shot calling them ragged. 

Or ignoring Almighty warning signs. 

Because Angel was all that, all the time. Evil's solution and, more'n likely, its source. 

Choking down with his defeat, Gunn dropped along the back of the driver's seat and twisted the keys. 

Fred flipped one end of her shawl across her chest. Gripping the open car door's armrest, she knelt until her chin kissed the top of her wrist. "It's clear that you didn't see Angel's' baby, Cordy. That's good. But now we have to help with this." 

Cordelia looked into Fred's brown eyes, unable to see their apology for the reflection of her own dread. "You're asking me to look again?" 

"I am *so* sorry, Cordelia, but -- " Wesley left his request in the air, where it clung to the musk and the chill and the gloom. 

The Seer nodded and closed her eyes. As she fell back into the remnants of her Vision, her breathing stilled, her pulse slowed. "I don't know what more it means," she said hoarsely, crumpling. Clumsily, her mouth bumped against her kneecap -- something she tasted rather than felt. 

Gunn reached into his sweatshirt pocket to get the napkin he pressed against the watery glob of blood. 

The storm waged war again. The car's suspension bounced as Gunn exited and faced Wesley. Together, they turned into the chaos, icy mist like artillery assaulting their skin. 

Just as the door began lowering, a Cadillac's hood ornament appeared. Gunn and Wesley half-heartedly retrieved their weapons while the Sedan de Ville pulled alongside the GTX. Rainwater shrank from its tan exterior into dollops, like clams on a beach -- if colored of tinted windows and blackening sky. 

Its engine expired. A back door, the passenger and driver's sides cracked in unison. One by one by one the occupants sprouted into view. Wearing unhappy faces, the three elderly men surveyed the peculiar environment. The youngest shook his head in wonder. The oldest slapped the hood. 

The driver slammed his door. "So," he began, hitching up his pants, "what are you people doing in our mill?" 

-0-   



	2. 

JUST ANOTHER CATACLYSMIC DAY   
by Evan Como   
part two   
  


-0- 

Holtz sang to himself while strolling past the row of cardboard boxes. Printed with the lettering 'Do Not Drop', each had become a makeshift bassinette. The five sleeping infants had not a care in the world. They were pink and plump, healthy by all standards. Pink and plump and healthy, as had been his son. 

"Do you recognize the tune? I learned it long ago. I used to serenade my wife -- 

" -- who looked nothing like you." The vampire hunter paused at infant four to recollect the young woman vehemently objecting to her bindings and gag. Her youthful, round face had been marked into thirds by the deep marionette lines framing her mouth. Dark, damp hair curled about her cheekbones, rising Medusa-like in the areas it was dry. An advertisement he'd seen that morning for some type of hair preparation would have kept her frizzes -- or frizzles? No matter>> -- under control. 

Stepping to the fourth, Holtz carried the appearance of a man in good spirits. At his arrival, the infant's cupid's bow lips formed a precious 'o'. "So innocent," he sang, bayoneting the guinea fowl sized breast with a forefinger. 

In comparison, Holtz tapped his own breastbone. Far from hollow, far from soft. Yet, he'd been soft for his Caroline. Caroline's benevolent face had been his constant. The ivory threading her hairline and glinting near the quilled rims of her eyes had only enhanced her grace. She'd never lost her beauty -- 

Was never allowed the chance to wither. Frizzed>> he mourned. With her death, the lines on his own face had scored that more deeply -- hash marks for all of the terrors he'd observed. 

And perpetuated. 

Providing reveille for his memories, another storm drummed against the wire-filigreed windowpane. The song in his throat, in his heart, in his head, was a foreign threnody he'd learned while picking through Angelus' and Darla's carnal debris. Cultures may not share languages, but they understand loss, separation. And so it was that long months and single-mindedness kept Holtz from his beloved. How infrequently he'd reveled in her fragrance. And the last time he'd known her... Mouthing such a song against her lovely flesh while an empyrean drizzle danced upon their roof. 

How he had doomed them, bringing such dearth into their bed! 

"What do you want, Sahjhan," he spoke into his fingertips, aloof to the four blissful smiles. 

"What have you done!" The demon's opposition was as tempestuous as his entry. At an anxious, muffled noise, his attention slid from the nursery scene and he greeted the woman by shedding his demonic physiognomy. 

"Ever courteous?" Holtz mused. 

"Now who's being sarcastic? And out of line!" Every one of Sahjhan's ageless years went into the reprimand. "Unless Angelus has divided himself, this is unacceptable." 

Holtz kept council with his musings. "I prefer 'unorthodox'," he replied a minute later. 

"You're..." Usually the expert with foibley humans, Sahjhan found his ally indecipherable. Unless... He smiled broadly, well-pleased. He clapped. "Drawing him out. Of course! Angelus will have to seek you out to save the rest!" 

Holtz negated the assumption with his head. "Angelus won't save these children." 

"Then I can't allow you to do this." 

Squinting, as if studying the being for the very first time, Holtz reminded him, "Yet, you are quick to command me: 'Show no mercy.'" 

"They're innocents," Sahjhan pointed out. Four times. 

"They're identical," Holtz dispensed with visible disgust. "This isn't natural." 

Hands balled at his waist, Sahjhan roiled with rage. "Look, guy. I didn't Zemeckis you into the future to imprint your morality on new age society. You saw this on TV -- Modern Medical Science. Does that *ring* any bells? Should have come up somewhere around transplants!" 

Nonplussed, Holtz snorted. "Life as a piecemeal commodity." 

Sahjhan stormed through a chair and two tables. "Obviously someone won't be signing the donor card on the back of their driver's license." 

Wrists crossed at the small of his back, Holtz strolled the length of the room. He paused at the window -- merely as a gesture, since the torrent made it impossible to see beyond the concrete wash below. "You would condone all this God-tasking." 

Eyes rolling into the top of his head, Sahjhan conceded, "Granted, it does prolong human suffering. And, with the potential for overpopulation? Shhhuh! Ya betcha!" 

"Now who needs a moralist?" Holtz poked. Summoning a few facial muscles from dormancy, he implemented a grin. 

Sahjhan's self-congratulatory exuberance spluttered. He summoned one of the more oafish Grapplars standing by the door, scowled and ordered, "You'll find another way." 

With that damnable tune trilling between his ears, Holtz was inured to Sahjhan's rant. "If you had seen the way Angelus carried that child -- He was awed. Absolutely dumbed by an emotion he will never be able to name." 

He met Sahjhan's sour face with his own. "No, he will not rescue these children, Sahjhan, but he will lament their deaths. He will feel responsible. Guilt is a merciless tool." 

Powerless to react with the imprisonment of dimension weighing upon him, despite his continuing role with Holtz, Sahjhan despised his bystander's position. He knew the future's outcome, had memorized the names of all the players, yet wild cards of independence kept diverting the final outcome. Hadn't The Powers That Be lost their active turn by pointing Angelus to The Slayer? The First had done no better -- returning the vampire to the playing field. No ointment in the universe was strong enough to cure that blister of defeat! And The Home Office -- 

Well, they kept having problems with team attrition. 

"My prey, Sahjhan," the righteous British voice intoned. "My methods." 

And now it had come to pass that Sahjhan's game boy had started positioning himself. 

The odds were recalculated and distributed across phases. Griping, The Few behind Sahjhan made their wagers accordingly. There was nothing to do but spectate while the current set-up played out. 

The future, after all, was well established. 

The way it got there, however, was not. 

-0- 

Fred padded across the loft as quietly as she'd done several times prior when carrying armfuls of yarn. Now nervously unraveling her shawl's fringes, she met Angel's silent inquiry with her usual reply -- she smiled like a dope. Just as usually, he smiled like he hadn't notice. Settled on top of the multi-hued fluff he seemed as vulnerable as the infant in his arms. She had to remind herself that was just how he'd been made -- cute and huggly. Only 'looking' that way, though, because he was way too dangerous to play with. 

"It's still roasty as a pig on a spit," she drawled. While overlooking the bin she produced two chips from her back pockets. Using them like tongs, she rearranged the cindering mound and scraped all the ash to the edges. Satisfied the burn was at its most efficient, she tucked the two new pieces of fuel under either side, slid her fingertips down her skirt's seams, and scuffed away. 

"I was worried that, with the drafts and everything, the temperature might not stay hot enough, but..." She marveled at the baby's pert button nose -- exactly like mama's. "Hey! If you wanna come downstairs, I got one of the old knitting machines fired up." 

A few strands of variegated yarn wormed over Angel's kneecaps as he unpretzled his legs and flip-flopped them. He frowned. "You're really determined to make us all sweaters." 

Fred air-shoved his shoulder. "Angel, you silly! Not to knit with; I turned it into a big ol', kinda pot-bellied stove!" 

He nodded as if he understood, but Fred wasn't sure that he did. Angel fooled her a lot of times. One day, he'd be an Einstein -- well, maybe not with theoretical matters or such, but Angel could be a wiz at solid common sense. Other times it seemed like the physical world was too much for him to wrap his brain around. 

One of those times like the present. 

"He deserves better," Angel said. 

Fred chomped down on her bottom lip and swooped next to them. Fanny touching her calves, she hugged her shins and beamed at the half-day old. "He's alive, Angel. And his daddy loves him. What more could he deserve?" 

Angel found Fred's expectant face just beyond his shirtsleeve. 

"It's a different love, Angel, but love all the same. You've got this Hyperion of a heart with plenty of empty space to fill..." 

The baby cooed. 

The rookie father's attention returned lapward. "He's been doing that a lot. And sleeping. I think he sleeps too much. And he doesn't cry. Why isn't he crying?" 

"That's what Cordy asked -- " 

"Cordy -- " 

"He's fine!" Tucking her chin, Fred flapped her eyebrows and wrinkled her face for the baby's entertainment. Angel's dark eyes felt like twin coals burning through her scalp. "Truly, Angel, if you think about it -- that whole getting birthed process was exhausting for him. Like when you were in my cave on Pylea -- remember how it was quiet there? And peaceful? Until you had to leave." 

She risked a hopeful peek into Angel's face, but whatever he remembered was hidden behind his surveillance of the other tenant. Ignoring them, the scrawny cat skulked towards her litter with a corpulent rat hanging by the scruff of its broken neck from her jaws. 

"You look really happy," Fred said, without actually meaning to. 

He lost control of wrangling his wriggly face. "Really? Because I'd swear this feels more like overwhelmed." Lashes fluttering and flurrying against the crescents of his high cheeks, Angel struggled, unprepared for the commotion on the ladder. 

Footing the charge, the unstable top brackets brayed inharmoniously with the clanging weight. 

"I wanna see the baby!" Javi announced before arriving. He vaulted over the edge, kneed across, and insinuated himself in between Angel and Fred. 

Angel lipped, 'who's he?' above the fascinated pre-teen's head, but before Fred could make the introduction, the attack had begun. 

Javi socked Angel in the arm. "Your baby's kinda cute!" 

Risking an examination from a couple different angles, Angel shrugged. "I guess. You really think so?" 

"Yes." Fred shook her exasperated head and ambled onto her feet. "C'mon, *Javi*. And you too, Angel. The owners of the building just nabbed us for cowbirding." 

"But we don't wanna move," Angel whined. Nonetheless, notching heels under thighs, the vampire's spinal column realigned his center of gravity until both shoulders were directly above his butterflied knees. Crossed ankles as his axis, he scaffolded onto his feet as though erected by an invisible crane. 

Mimicking his son, equally clueless about how effortlessly they'd escalated, Angel wobbled his lower lip. "Hear him?" he marveled. 

In between footfall, the baby fell utterly silent, plunging Angel into suspension. Rain above them stopped ticking; water hurtling to the floor postponed descent. Angel steadfastly retained the breath he hadn't realized he'd taken before the baby had a chance to grab it first. 

Life and death and alleys and dust and to dust and it always came down to taking the innocent and damn the unfairness and -- 

NO!>> 

Angel waited. 

And waited. 

And waited. 

And waited to die. Again. 

no... pleeeeease?>> 

An aspiration -- so subtle it might have been missed if not so impotently hoped for. Itsy fingers curled, bitty lips quivered, newborn-blue eyes blinked the delivery of two tears. 

The rain knocked on the roof and tumbled onto the floor. All, goodness. All for the want of hypnotic syncopation to set the universe in motion again... 

"See, you guys? The baby likes this!" Javi exclaimed, proudly rat-a-tatting two Blo-Pops on the floor. 

The infant's mouth shaped a smile. 

Fred ruffled Javi's hair before giving into the happy rhythm. Marching to the ladder, long curls bounced against her spine. She tossed her head. "C'mon Angel!" she saluted, toeing for the first rung. 

Poking his nose into the blanket, Angel inserted a kiss. Cautiously bobbing his chin in cadence, he embraced his cherished parcel and toddled to the edge.   
  


The driver grunted and swerved his waistband. "And now a baby, to boot?" 

The elder smacked his troubled forehead. "I should have stayed in Escondido." 

The younger was magnetized to the parent. After visual permission, he peered into the blanket. "I'm Joe Weiss. Saul and Rube-the-old-guy, my brothers, are over there. We were d.b.a. Egyptian Knitting Mills." 

Angel nodded politely. "Angel. And, uh ..." 

"Googie, googie, goo -- " Joe's eyelids flitted up and down. "We've met all of your friends already. And the kid with the animals -- Nice car. Adorable baby." 

Caught off-guard by the compliments, Angel grinned dufusly. "We're sorry to trespass," he said. 

Escorting Cordelia to Angel's side, Wesley supplemented, "And we'll vacate immediately." 

"Good!" Rube hawked and spit. "Then we'll only be a shelter for homeless animals!" 

"You must be deaf, old man." Gunn pinkied the car keys out of his coin pocket. "Like I already told you, we ain't homeless!" 

"Ech!" Rube flicked both wrists and limped away. 

"Don't mind him," Joe exhaled patiently. "Will the baby be safe if you leave?" 

Taking his turn at disgruntlement, Saul scuffled towards his brother. "Joe, Joe. What are you, nuts? We don't need to be involved with vagrants." 

Dramatically, Gunn opened the car door. "Look, we're going! Aw'ight?" He hopped in, turned on the ignition and cuffed the dashboard. 

The convertible top droned into action. 

"Saul, it's Noah's flooding out there. Not to mention the meshugener baby-killer -- " Joe appealed, agitated. 

"Baby killer?" Angel echoed. 

Cordy's high heels clicked off the span of her purposeful gait. "Look, Saul. We wouldn't ask otherwise, because seriously, we'd rather be in a five-star hotel." 

Eyebrows hiked with esteem, Angel shadowed Cordelia, intimating, "Although, I wouldn't go *that* far. Maybe before what I did to the lobby and if you don't count the condemned wing, that would make it a fourish, four and a halfish -- " 

Fists on her hips, Cordelia angled her head one way; her lips slid another. 

"Don't dis my son's home," Angel said, insulted. 

Saul stuffed both hands into his pants pockets, pulled them out, yanked his pants to just under his chest and shoved his hands away again. "Fine. Fine. You all look hungry, though. Joe, grab the Honeybaked from out of the trunk, but *you're* explaining this to Carla and the girls." 

The Plymouth roof stopped, mid-convert. "So, we stayin' or goin'?" Gunn asked. 

As he hustled past, Joe swept an inviting arm and, using the button on his keyring, popped the Caddy's trunk. "Turkey and most of the Trimmings. And -- " 

Fred couldn't wait for the kraft paper bag. "Eggnog!" she exclaimed, giddy. After unveling the cylindrical metal can, she grimaced. "Formula." 

Saul tapped the brand name. "There was a Rite-Aid next to the Honeybaked store. It's not everyday you can get such a deal on this stuff." 

Joe passed Cordelia a plastic bag -- the store logo framed by a holly wreath. "Saul's a great-great grampa in-waiting," he proclaimed. 

"Pardon me -- " 

The throng leaned around to find Wesley, blatantly queasy. 

"Figures -- A skin and bones like him would be a nudge about a free meal." Saul returned to foraging. "Sonny, if you don't like turkey, just pick at the sides!" 

Eyes flooding, Cordelia clapped one hand over her mouth and hastened away. 

"Cordy!" Angel called out, his impulse to follow hedged by the grip Gunn had on his shirt. "What's going on?" 

Gunn scowled. "Seems there's a couple little things someone musta forgotten to tell you about."   
  


Angel located Cordelia in a very dank area. The air was clotted with a moldy scent -- from matter that had been decomposing in the concrete floor's cracks long before the present rainstorm and not, mercifully, the animal odor pervading the majority of the building. He doubted the candle wattage generated by a streetlamp, meagerly imparting an amber blush through the random scratches in a painted window, was decent enough for anyone unendowed with supernatural vision to distinguish the assorted relics -- a tipped sewing machine, the concave desk, a passel of broken cams. 

Protecting his son, he backed through the sphere of heat being generated by Fred's raging knitting machine. While maneuvering their turn Angel got blasted by Cordelia's uncontained hopelessness -- an unbecoming mantle she'd taken to over-wearing. She smiled less frequently than he did; the furrow between her brows could officially be considered permanent. Once had been too many times for her mind to be tapped, her body violated and, now that they'd begun venturing into the realm of 'countless', Cordelia's effervescent spirit -- what made her uniquely Cordelia -- visibly dwindled beyond Angel's scope of retrieval. 

Hyperion of a heart, HA!>> he mused cynically. A dead heart that had been so unwelcoming over the years its 'no vacancy' imperative had informed the dearest person in his life: there's no place better for solace than someplace else! 

"Here," Angel said, wheeling the plate beneath her nose. 

Eyes straight ahead and unfixed on any one object, Cordelia reared away. "You just can't bring keep bringing food, expecting me to dish out more complete visions, Angel." 

He closed his eyes to the hollowness in her voice, claimed a corner of the crate she sat on. "You need to eat," he replied as impassively, setting the plate on her knees. 

Not only did Cordy sound beat, she looked it. The vibrancy in her hazel eyes had drained into their sooty shores. Wearily, she scraped the lackluster hair away from her sallow cheeks, hooked the ends behind her ears almost as an afterthought. She sat still -- much too still, except for the stray movement of dredging her thumbnails along her fingertips. That compulsion was either something new or something Angel had been failing to notice. 

Thunder clapped against the city's ceiling. The baby keened sharply and constricted. 

"I've looked. And I've looked again and again. AND, I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING MORE!" she gnashed, too hysterical to sob. 

Angel bounced the infant on his bicep and said softly, "I wasn't asking for more details, Cordelia. I'm asking you to eat. Wesley and Gunn have gone to see if Lorne can pick up the details." 

The young woman wilted. Only the plate's aroma kept her from falling into her own lap. "Because I couldn't help the helpless, Angel." 

"Because *you* weren't meant to," he spoke across her nape. "So, take a really deep breath, curse out the Powers That Be, and then have a bite to eat." 

Suspicious, Cordy watched him straighten and stand. "Advice that's supposed to make me feel better?" she questioned huskily. 

Enveloping his restive son, Angel checked the wobbly head with his cheek and lost Cordelia in a blur. "Other than the deep breathing part, it's been working for me." 

-0- 

"It's getting very difficult not to give into the notion that someone is out to deter us." Wesley waited behind yet another intersection's limit line. They'd driven six blocks in a deserted area and been stopped by as many traffic lights. 

The tinny radio failed to provide a break in the silence that hung between him and his tight-lipped passenger. "They've repeated the same information so many times, it doesn't even make sense anymore," he complained. His hand waved erratically, hinged along the top of the steering wheel by its heel. 

The windshield flared vivid green. Gunn hacked through the air with a directorial palm. 

The tire whine climbed into a higher register as Wesley accelerated cautiously. Swiping his cuff across the window to clear a view of the side mirror was a waste of effort; leather didn't absorb, it bleared. 

He raised his right foot in anticipation, a mille-instant before the next light blared 'you just as well stop'. Left leg bent at a right angle, Wesley seized his knee and straightened his elbow. "My God! We *just* heard them repeat the count a minute ago! Why don't they go back to babbling on about the rain?" 

The cross-traffic light held yellow... Blinked red. An eternity passed before Wesley received the permission to go. The windshield wiper blades, like broken wings in a tornado, flailed uselessly against rain that had begun falling harder and layering the thoroughfare in blankets. 

Gunn inhaled. Gunn exhaled and shifted uneasily against the vinyl. 

The Plymouth lurched; it swerved. Its roof, glass, hood and trunk were pummeled by hail. Granular bits plinked and dissipated. Sports ball-sized pieces walloped the vinyl roof and, after abusing it like a trampoline, bounced onto the asphalt to fragment and pellet the undercarriage. 

Frigidly, Gunn slapped the interior air unit to "Defrost", flicked the fan to "Hi". "If fire bolts zing from the sky, English -- " he began, hunkering into his seat. 

He raised his retracting left hand, oath-making style. "And *that's* all I'm sayin'." 

-0- 

"Hey. You asleep?" 

Seated cross-legged upon the skeins of yarn, Angel rearranged the blanket around his beautiful son's face. While he tucked it under the bump of a chin, the infant's eyelids strained to open, eventually settling closed. 

"That's OK. You don't have to wake up. You've probably still got a lot of sleeping to do." Clenching his fist, Angel resisted the urge to test for the baby's temperature. "Rain'll do that to you. Makes you drowsy..." 

Terse laughter tumbled from his throat. "Although, now that I think about it, that's usually not what rain does for me." He tipped one ear to the vent in the common wall, listened to the latest downpour's rhythmic pitter-patter. "But, that'll become our sign, right? If it's raining, you'll know: Daddy must be up to something!" 

One of the baby's arms escaped the covers. Hand floating across his face, four fingers wriggled under the tip of his nose while his thumb nestled between his rosy lips. 

Asleep, he was tranquility incarnate. 

"Smells like Pylea," Angel hummed. "I think this is the stuff they burned -- " Icy white around the edges, the ebony briquettes glowed red at their centers. Heat rose in vertical ribbons, distorting the air. 

His brows twitched and his mouth wrenched, disgusted. " -- except they had a different breed of cow." 

Shallow breaths caressed his fingertips while he worried the blanket about the baby's plump cheeks. "I'll tell you all about Pylea one day. Or probably -- " self-amusement broke its containment, " -- I'll tell you about Pylea too many times until you'll be sick of hearing about it. Cause that's what Dad's do, huh? Tell the same old boring stories over and over until you're too embarrassed to bring your friends over the house and --" 

Angel inhaled, reining in the run-away conversation. "Fergeddabout me. You'll have to worry more about your Aunt Cordy and Kate, Auntie Fred, Uncle Wesley and Gunn because *they're* the talkers. Especially Cordy. She's got the best heart on earth, but you'll have to learn to duck when she starts throwing words around. Man! And *really* watch out for her 'cause it's not just her honesty that can pack a punch." 

Stretching his shoulders was painful; he'd been hunched since his son's arrival. He felt an itch to get active, but, as instinctively, put it out of his mind. 

"One day I'll have to tell you about your Mom," he heard. Angel leaned back and checked beyond the temporary wall, fully expecting to find a ventriloquist. 

"Our Mom," he corrected, closing his eyes. 

"It's this whole vampire thing I've got going on?" he exhaled, feeling his features pinch. "I know, I know. It's already a weird enough family situation to bring otherworldly into the mix, but it'll be cool. I've spent a lot of time around High Schoolers and they all think their parents are freaks. If you think about it, this way, I'm saving you the lie." 

He nosed the baby's wispy hairline. "Because I don't want you to have to lie. You know... We can talk. We will. Even if I might not understand you. OK?" 

The sleepy head lolled to one shoulder, so affably. 

"Just like -- Like you were talking so great to your Mom. Darla tried to resist, but you made her understand, didn't you? What it's like -- To feel. And that way, she could let go -- You helped set her free. Because -- She really got the message, everything you'd been teaching her. You inspired her to kindness, you know. For the first time since I'd known her." 

He reclined and, balancing the baby on his chest, snaked closer to the fire bin. The blanket was fuzzy beneath his chin. "One day -- She was pretty. Your Mom was pretty. And she had this killer smile -- Or not. A nice smile. She had a real nice smile when she wasn't being a hardcase." 

Wistful, he smoothed his cheek slowly atop the baby's skull. "Let's hope you don't wind up with her stubborn streak," he whispered preventatively. 

Even if Angel couldn't make it out, he knew there was a secure roof above their heads. And that mattered, more than it ever had in the past. "You helped it out work that Darla would never be alone again. That was the promise I made to her and I blew it for a while. I mean well, but I can get a little flaky about promises. Threats? No big. But promises... 

"Anyway, you were there for your Mom most of that time when I wasn't and you -- " Angel sat up abruptly. Toes wriggling inside his boots, he cleaved the baby to his chest. The bundle stirred. While grasping for collar, four teensy fingernails scratched Angel's throat. 

"That just proves how good you are! That you don't even know what responsibility is yet but you were handling it just like a pro. I'm supposed to be a professional, but I'm still having problems getting with the program the majority of the time." 

He thumbed his tear off the baby's cheek and was dazzled by the newborn's skin. How incredible! He'd never known anyone softer. A hummingbird pulse and a blossom of warmth bountiful enough to share -- to bestow the semblance of a life, the way Angel remembered owning it for one lost day, long ago. 

"But you're not responsible for these other babies, OK? Bad things happen and I know I'm supposed to stop them, but I can't all the time. Most of the time I don't make a fu - freakin' dent. And that's not your responsibility either." 

Angel caught himself breathing and desisted. 

"Because you're normal." He blinked. "And I'm not. 

"I'm not of your world, but I'm going to try especially hard to live in it with you the way you'll need me to. And it's -- It's going to hurt to stay attached because I'm going to have to watch my friends fade while you grow up. But you're going to grow up. And be strong, and be healthy and be -- God -- 

" -- be good." Angel snarfed, skimmed both eyes across his sleeve. "What -- Whoever was protecting you -- They had to have made sure that evil plus evil cancelled out. Because you *have* to equal good." 

Five fingers secured the delicate skull as Angel hobbled onto both knees. "Don't worry, Baby. I've got you right here," Angel he reassured, sitting back on his heels. 

A miniature heart palpitated joyously, radiating trust while the heavens showered blessings. 

Rearranging the blanket, Angel beheld the enormity of an impossibility. Asleep in his arms. 

"Please," he whispered. His lashes dusted the twinge of discomfort crimping the baby's eyebrows before he sowed a kiss. "Please. God, please. Don't let my boy be evil." 

-0-   



	3. 

JUST ANOTHER CATACLYSMIC DAY   
by Evan Como   
part three   
  


-0- 

The power line bowed above the factory roof arced sporadically, silhouetting the hideous, squat behemoth. A thousand eyeteeth jagged up from a carousel jaw; handless, spindley arms crooked out for no reason other than to model tattered spider web sleeves. Half-decapitated, slightly dismembered, glowing maroon in the pit of its angry belly, it resembled any number of creatures Angel had ever been assigned to whack. 

Another dash of light bounced off a wiry cowlick rising like a question mark from the tracery of hair atop Joseph's head and highlighted the line of his sloping, straight nose -- cute, the way it triangled above his wrinkly pooching mouth. His heavy eyebrows twitched nervously, like a clique of insect antennae. 

He carried on his inspection like someone looking for something that wasn't where he was supposed to find it. 

"What do you see?" Cordelia asked. 

Joe jerked in her direction. A friendly grin wiped startlement and a decade off his face. "That we should have razed this building two decades ago." Rubbing his forehead with his fist, his expression switched to ill-ease quicker than Angel could vamp-out. "You don't believe me." 

Cordy sat up straight. Knees pressing her palms together, she shrugged. "It's your warehouse, fill it with anything you like. And, after it dries, hire Fred show you what to do with it." 

He laughed. "You here by yourself because you want to be, or because they're afraid of you?" 

A helicopter buzzed overhead, vibrating the building. Circling twice, it threw a dozen squares of blinding searchlight before flying away. The glass rattled in its retreat. 

Cordelia took each breath like the rain fell -- slow and constant. 

Joe waved a hand in front of the heater. "This was the only knitting machine we couldn't sell off. She was a real oil-eater." He bent over from the waist and began lowering into a crouch. After a couple of bones creaked, he gripped his hip and plopped his keister next to Cordy instead. 

"Now it would make a *great* patio furnace. And what a conversation piece!" he enthused, clicking the soles of his tassled slip-ons. 

Cordelia smiled. 

Joe smiled, too. He just didn't hold it as long. "You asked what I see? I saw this. Maybe even all of you." 

"Some folks call it 'déjà vu'," Cordy replied, pretending to let the warm air bake her eyelids. 

"Are you some kind of mind reader?" Joe whispered, fearful. 

She leaned over and enunciated, "Confluence." 

Without brightness, his worried blue eyes a became darker version of clear. "Well, you seem to be taking this all in stride." 

Cordy crossed her ankles and folded her arms. "They keep calling it by different names, but all the words mean the same thing." 

"A coming together." Joe nodded. 

She gave her head a petite shake. "Try, worldslide." 

He shouldered against her, tipped his head, and sighed. "When I was much younger than you -- oh, maybe eighteen or so -- I used to have horrible daydreams. About monsters and the like. But I never told anyone. It didn't feel right to say anything. And then, one day -- POOF! -- they stopped." 

Cordy's forehead crinkled. "What did you see?" she asked, super-attentive for his answer. 

"Awful creatures." Lightning flooded the gloom and Joe's jumbled features -- rearranged by scattered emotions. Index fingers sticking up on each side of his mouth, he spasmed. "The phantasmagorical." 

Cordy pillowed her cheek on the back of her flattented hands. She squinted in like at the skylight. 

"And it always began with a flash of light... Rain..." His head tossed and turned. "As many times as I've tried to recollect since I saw it the last time -- " 

Twisting around, he was relieved to find all was serene. His brothers were engaged in conversation with Cordelia's girlfriend. The baby was quiet, upstairs with his father. Behind a fence made from police tape, the livestock belonging to the boy who had eaten and left circled for warmth, with the cows lowing amongst themselves. 

"Most everything seems to be here, just not in the same way." 

Cordy's lips crooked. "It's been a while. Could be your interpretation is rusty," she proposed. 

"NO!" Quickly curbing all indignation over the question of his competence, Joe evened his tone of voice. "My dream was very similar -- A factory, a baby, a storm. A girl with brown hair. An incredible burst of light -- "   
  


The three boys blinked. 

Holtz stepped from infant to infant. As the room recovered from Nature's outburst, their activity resumed. 

"You've made your point, let the rest go," Sahjhan repeated. 

Holtz turned his head to the hurricane lamp; and, as he furtively watched, the children's heads turned, also. "Curious," he voiced. Expected, however, when the trio sought out the first notes he sang, "Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take -- 

"The clouds ye so much dread -- " His audience fidgeted at a break in the melodic baritone -- only long enough to inhale. "Are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head." 

Sahjhan cringed. "Yeesh! How cheery is that little ditty? Not! I've never understood where you people expect to find comfort in ecclesiastical music that's so morose. Got clue?" 

"*They* don't seem to mind the simple hymn," Holtz chanted, fascinated by the babies' behavior: they had never, once, acknowledged Sahjhan's presence. 

The demon fumed. The woman shrilled against her gag. Paying neither any heed, Holtz commanded a Grapplar child-ward. 

The room illuminated and the mercenary chose right. He changed his mind and selected the left. While a deafening boom resounded from the foothills to the ocean side, he cocked his head, uncertain. 

Incensed, Holtz indicated to harvest the middle child and the outer boys squealed -- an unearthly, piercing siren. Foretelling hackles raised in alarm, Holtz recoiled to shelter his hearing. 

The sky burst. Lightning scythed through the window, electrifying its honeycomb. It zephyred through Sahjhan. 

And torched the wall.   
  


Clutching her collar to her throat, Cordy scrambled onto her feet. "Where? When?" she shouted over a thunderclap. 

"Why?" Joseph shrugged. "Why now, to remember it at all?" 

Eyes locked on the base of the knitting machine, the Seer searched her memories for an archived parallel. "What kind of monsters again?" 

"I don't know, but they walked and talked just like men." He scoured the back of his head with the finger joints of one liverspotted hand. "Maybe it was just a *dream* dream. A teenage boy's late night overindulgence on blintzes and Doctor Moreau." 

"But what if it was more?" Cordy gazed into his eyes, as if her greater experience could see it out of him. "If it was so vivid." 

Joe pushed off his knees and stood. He shrugged again. "Today I got a reason for why we never did anything with this building. And now I'm done." 

To prevent him from leaving, Cordy snatched his overcoat. She recklessly pulled down on his sleeve and ardently appealed into his face, "But you had a premonition of something bad. You might have answers I don't!" 

He patted her hand and sighed, disagreeing. "I don't know what I had, Cordelia. There are wonderments that ordinary men can't fathom." His chin rose to meet her launching objection, one he quickly shot down with, "Nor, are we meant to." 

He smiled, dentures rosy in the ruddy light. "And those rules apply to everyone, even to beautiful young women like you." 

Sternly, she sighted him, one-eyed. "That's not true." 

"Ah, but it is. Take Javi, for example. He has possession of farm animals in the city. And do you know how he feeds them? His father mows lawns for a living. Of all the boys, these animals were led to his door. And, until my brothers and I figure out what to do with this place, they have a roof over their heads, Saul and I have a new gardener, and the animals will continue to eat." 

"Confluence," Cordelia murmured, awed. 

He pinched her chin affectionately and took a hankie from his pocket. After shaking it open, he dabbed at the corners of her eyes. 

Reawakening her sensation. 

The skin on his fingers had never known lotion. Between the dampness and the blasting heat, Fred had concocted a sauna. The frozen concrete made her clammy feet hurt so bad that she wanted to dance. Yet, nothing felt like the pleasant irritation of a crisp, cotton wipe. 

She threw both arms around the geezer, simple as that. "What's it like, Joe? Not caring about what's weird in the world?" she asked, intrigued with the nubby texture of his lapel. 

He refolded her collar correctly, then squeezed her. "It's not that I don't care, sweetheart. But I've got enough to worry about between my family and friends." 

He propped her away and winked. "I figure, it's our duty to be right with ourselves and our neighbors. Everything else gets trusted to more qualified hands." 

-0- 

"Thanks, Ags." Lorne nodded graciously. As he took possession of the cocktail, his long, verdant fingers briefly slipped across the more slender ones belonging to his hostess. While sipping, he deftly rearranged the front of the borrowed chenille robe, grateful for warmth over the glamour of his usual lounge coat -- a vintage rayon kimono, Waikiki, circa 1941. Cleanly clothed and scalding-hot showered, he still smelled like a disaster. 

Probably a carrier scent from the first time Caritas got thrashed>> he assumed. 

Agnes Belflour slippered across the living room carpet, balancing a teacup and carbonated beverage-filled glass. "All you guys should have stayed when you dropped off Lorne," she said, handing the glass to Gunn. "If you give me the address, I'll go right now and pick everyone else up." 

Wesley smiled appreciatively, for both the caffeine and kindness. 

"You psychic, can't you just figure out the location on your own?" Gunn slurped, reveling in his funky mood. Spine bent, knees higher than his waist, head held cobra-like over his drink, he filled the overstuffed parlour chair as if he'd been pitched into it. 

The Host lunged to the rim of his seat. "Sounds like your smart mouth's been chewing on your brains, Gunn," he grouched 

Wesley confronted the opponents with a palm apiece. "Fellows, this isn't productive. There are three -- *hopefully* -- more children out there that need to be found and we've no other resources, Lorne." 

"Welcome to the club. Oh, wait! That's right. There's no club to welcome you to -- " Lorne acerbically gestured with his glass and checked Gunn through its pinkish contents. " -- AGAIN!" 

Balancing on one thigh, Aggie reposed along the arm of Lorne's chair. She gave his chest a conciliatory push, affectionately chiding, "Lorne. I don't have to remind you, material things come and go." 

He huffed and imbibed. "Maybe with a little less going..." 

Brows pushed together under a swell of consternation, Aggie eyelashed Lorne's mouth shut. Most times she was a congenial counselor, always available to patiently dole out advice until he came to her conclusion. She didn't look very charitable, though; she looked ready to clobber him and he flinched, prepared for the worst. 

That arrived as a playful jiggle of his right horn. 

So, humiliation it was; at least, in present company. Lorne frowned. "Wes, the problem is, not being a sanctioned oracle, I don't have the means to connect to these kids. You could bring me to Cordy, but it may already be too late." 

Nodding, Aggie added, "And, if she's being as remote as you say she is -- " 

"She is," Gunn interrupted, glaring from under his brows while correcting his posture. "But I don't remember us sayin'." 

"Hmmmm." Her hooded eyes were cloaked with feistiness. "I must have figured that out on my own." 

Lured by hope, Wesley nearly scooted off his cushion. Forearms on either thigh, he opened his hands in earnest supplication. "Perhaps -- " 

But her wagging finger curtailed his supposition. "I'm sorry, but I don't do Lorne. And I can't just -- " Temples braced by her fingers, she rolled her eyes to the ceiling. 

And relaxed. "What it sounds like is that Angel's baby is interfering with Cordelia's vibe." 

The ex-Watcher pinched the bridge of his nose. "I've yet to determine if the baby is a supernatural or not." 

Lorne patted the man's knee. "He's alive, Wes. Take that as a confirmation." 

Slipping her thumb and forefinger over the rim, Aggie slid Lorne's empty glass from his grip. She rose and reached for Wesley's cup -- forgotten and tepid. 

Roused by her proximity, Wesley lifted his head from his calamitous thoughts and, unaware of his actions, snagged a few strands of her hair. He treasured the unfamiliar texture between his fingers -- spun floss under the crisp curls spiraling from her center part like Christmas ribbons. 

She was every shade of coffee -- from her café-au-lait complexion to her espresso hair and eyes, her orange-cappuccino lips. "I beg your pardon," he spoke, unable to extricate himself from the personal violation, intoxicated by bergamot, jasmine, anisette. 

Aggie leaned, setting Lorne's glass on the coffee table. Her deep-set eyes relaxed, half-closed while being were full of forgiveness. She reacted as though she suffered through several days each month untangling strangers from her hair. With the delicacy of a surgeon, she began to unwind. 

As she tipped her head, her high cheeks were partially overshadowed by her mane. A lock, caught between his littlest and ring fingers wouldn't give. "You're scared to touch her," Aggie voiced without judgement. The table lamp glowed apricot across slightly oily eyelids closed for concentration. 

"God yes," Wesley replied, engulfed by a comber of isolation more turbulent than his own. 

"But... She's so alone." 

She searched his face and he obliged the scrutiny. He swallowed, nearly submerging his voice. "I ruined my chance," he confessed. 

"Fire," she breathed. 

Entranced by the tenderness of her touch, the warmth of her ministrations, the generosity of her lips... Wesley vowed, "Never!" 

Face contorting in panic, Aggie snarled her hair. "Smoke!" she gagged. "FIRE!" she yelled. 

While Lorne wrapped one arm around her shoulders to subdue his friend, Gunn worked at the disentangling. "Hold up, girl!" he cautioned, doing his best to avoid being under-snagged. "This is already gonna be a hella comb-thru by the time this white boy gets done witchoo." 

Wesley sighed. Although her eyes had shuttered him out, he was still adrift in her aura. "How could I fire her when it was all *my* fault?" 

Using his free hand, Lorne patted his hip pocket. "If I had a bar rag on me, I'd offer it. WES!" He tagged the introspective man across the shoulder. "Self-absorb on your own time. Aggie's seeing smoke. From a fire." 

Wesley wrung his freed hand. He massaged the fingers pained by pins and needles. "Smoke?" he inquired of Gunn, then Lorne. 

Thighs crossed, hands clenching her sleeves, Aggie tottered to and fro. "A woman. Gagging. Smoke and a woman with -- Smoke is surrounding a woman with long, brown hair." 

Kicked into gear by immediacy, Gunn knelt and grabbed her cheeks. "And the rest of the babies?" he demanded, directing her head. 

"Babies aren't -- " Aggie replayed the perceptions inside her mind. "No babies. Was it ever about babies?" 

The young man gave up and released her. Just as he bowed his head, a familiar fist landed on his shoulder. "If you were shown the address -- " Gunn heard, words spoken English-style, almost like prayer. 

He clubbed Wesley's fist with his own. 

Aggie fluffed the curls out of her eyes. She exhaled. "No address, but I recognize those windows. And that building's not too far from here."   
  


Peering in profile through the sheer curtains of her front door, Aggie groped her fingers. The black car had begun pealing away from the curbside before its headlights had fully beamed on. She waited until the rear end faded from view before meeting the two eyes reflecting from behind. 

Lorne swirled the refill's ice cubes. "Whatever you do, Ags, make sure it's not done with song." 

She smiled wanly. A tear rolled onto her cheek. "She's dying." 

Lorne squeegied the sides of his glass with two fingers. "I know," he said, cupping her elbow. 

She let her head drop back against his chest and listened to the rainwater spilling over the gutters slop onto the porch steps. "Would you also happen to know when anyone else is going to notice?" 

-0- 

"Six as decoys," Holtz deduced. Firelight danced across his outraged face. 

While illuminating Sahjhan's befuddlement. 

The storm had tapered off and the sentinel's bleating had followed suit. Reverting to normalcy, they fussed upon occasion. 

And Holtz remained guarded. He circled the demon and the trio, varying the circumference upon each revolution. "Why are you so surprised, Sahjhan? A human face is no evidence that the bearer is human. Even you possess such a mask of deceit." 

As Sahjhan waved forward through the murky air, his extremities vanished and reappeared. "And you. Standing at the window earlier -- Were you looking inside or out?" He laughed callously in the woman's direction. "Don't worry, Holtz, you're human. At least, by your strict definition. You must be feeling pretty virtuous right now -- or a tad miffed -- Your actions just got the mondo validation." 

Nose to nose with Holtz, he smirked into the chiaroscuro of the man's eyes and, in the midst of their churning emotion, he witnessed a progression -- 

The door flew across the room. A hooded figure arrived. The flock of wooly hounds that followed him were herded by another figure clothed in an identical mudcloth robe. As with the first, he was covered from crown to sole and carried a similar staff -- nearly two yards in length with a hammered, copper finial topping the gnarled wood. 

"What does this mean? Who are they?" Holtz queried. 

"Don't be so impatient," Sahjhan chided lightly. Enabling a better vista in the thickening haze, he stepped to the side. Keeping his eyes on Holtz, it took all the lord's willpower to restrain a self-congratulatory huzzah for having chosen so perfectly. This excavated artifact of a mortal man gleamed! Beneath Holtz' disapproving disposition twinkled his most valuable aspects -- intelligence, determination, and intense revulsion for the netherworldly. 

"The purposes will ripen fast enough. Won't they?" he gloated. 

Baying and snarling, the ferocious beasts bucked their strapping hind legs. Their keeper's staffs rose and fell, rose and fell, and swooshed above their incorrigible heads until, eventually, they were tamed at the feet the babes. 

The boys cooed with glee. The fire crackled peaceably and its flames decorated the walls with lively Nouveau swirls. 

Sounding like a squabble of geese, a cluster of bells pierced the haze. On the tip of a pole, they poked through the doorway and rose until the banner below them had been revealed. The standard and its bearer were draped in amaryllis and fuchsia, with stark black symbols strewn across their colorful fields. 

The two-headed bovine pounded on the floor with the end of the pole, canting, "Ei kai yho." 

By carol and thumping rhythm, three creatures entered in single file. Bedecked and bejeweled like royalty, opulent tapestries contrasted their tawny hides and precious gems, plaited throughout their amber manes, speckled their leonine heads. After joining the phalanx of worshipers, they flashed their gilded grins. 

Upon the center child. 

The leader reached into the embroidered sack slung across his chest and exhumed a crown. Held aloft, smoke wove between fanciful wrought-working, fire danced within its sheen. "Foretold," he snarled and set the ornament above the baby's head. 

His companions nodded in approval. 

The next took his place. With one shake of his arm, an object fell from the cache of his full sleeve into his meaty paw. Presenting it, nooked behind his yellowed talons, he grunted "Awaited," before inserting the roll into the baby's clenched left hand. 

Proudest, the last tipped a saber to his nose. "De -- " he wheezed. 

"-- live -- " he hacked. 

"De-LI-vered!" he sneezed, doubling over. 

Sahjhan applauded, ecstatic. 

Holtz reacted. Differently. 

Taking advantage of the creature's seizure, he swiped the sword and swept out. Despite eleven score and seven years of inactivity, his limbs had retained the memory of attack. Just as he'd recently dispatched the lawyer's retinue, he hacked, slashed, gutted; he sliced, impaled, beheaded. 

The fire sizzled and hissed at the fluids impeding its trenchant progression. The babies wailed, all of them now. Their aunt, concealed within the room's density, choked and sobbed. 

Holtz tabulated the body count without conceit. After all, the unclean things had fallen before given the opportunity to anticipate their extinction. "Are the mercenaries still mine to command?" he asked, honing blood off the borrowed blade with one of the empty blankets. 

The antsy Grapplars snuffled between the two for instructions. 

Nodding unhappily, Sahjhan confirmed reality. "Just promise not to knife any more of them." 

Holtz plucked the scroll away from the angry child and, issuing a command, waved it above the three boxes. "I promise. No more knives," he replied mordantly, tucking the parchment tube into a pocket. 

-0- 

Wesley shielded his nose behind a leather lapel. "Try not to breathe!" he shouted. 

Giving a thumb-up, Gunn took one last lungful of the corridor's air. They'd searched the majority of the two-story building already without any luck; but then, the rest of it hadn't been burning like hell. 

He followed Wesley, rubbernecking through the opaque orange atmosphere. If he felt retarded walking like Lancelot Link, he figured Wesley -- maybe an inch shorter -- probably felt the same way. He doubted, though, that Wes got the same memories off the smell that crept inside his nostrils. He didn't use to mind the odor of burning hair 'cause of the Saturday morning kitchen memories associated with it -- of his Moms, fighting with Alonna to get the little brat's hair pressed for Sunday morning. 

Problem was, that childhood memory of Alonna was the same as his last. 

"GUNN!" Wesley snapped his fingers beside the man's ears. 

Gunn reeled. "That sweet smell... It's making me dizzy." 

Nodding, Wesley tugged the neckline of Gunn's sweatshirt over the other man's nose. "Like almonds. Burning wool -- not good!" he explained. 

No sooner had Wesley remasked, Gunn stepped onto a rag. He crouched down to pick it up, figuring to use it as a fan. Only, when he got nearer to the floor and saw into the thinner haze... Clumps, burning clumps -- fleece, flesh... Resisting his stomach's urge to say 'hello', he gulped hard and, grabbing hold of the back of Wesley's coat, pulled himself up unsteadily. 

Wesley leant his hearing in every direction. "This way!" he announced into the one he chose. 

As anticipated, they found the woman with bedraggled brunette tresses. She was slumped in her chair, deathly still save for a random jitter. 

Wesley immediately began unknotting the sisal bindings. "We're here to help," he soothed. 

Gunn tenderly unwrapped a long strip of muslin from around her mouth. He flinched -- her lips were so raw, the bruising looked inside out. 

A portion of the ceiling cracked and dropped. "We gotta go!" Gunn yelled, eyeing the piece dangling by a string made from a hundred coats of paint. 

"This is a nightmare, right?" Maria blubbered. She butted into the younger man as Wesley helped her onto her feet. "Everything is going to be OK when I wake up. Right?" 

Wesley rearranged the glasses on his nose. 

The petite woman balked. Her clasped hands dropped; becoming a dead weight, they anchored Maria onto the chair. "There were m-m- m-m-monsters with huge teeth coming out of their lips and -- " 

The duo draped her slack arms around their necks, took hold of her waist and hoisted. "C'mon. You gotta get some sleep, water, something to eat -- " Gunn cajoled. 

"No. No! NO!" Frightened by the blood stains across her sweater, she opposed their assistance. "I WANTED TO PROTECT THEM!" she shrieked. 

Gasping in the fresher air, they hauled her down the fire escape. Accidentally glancing to Wes, Gunn didn't have to guess about the other man's thought. It had to be the same as his: they'd just saved the life of someone who'd never recover. 

Gunn kept the Plymouth's passenger seat from uprighting and Wesley settled the woman into the back, buckling her down under the duress of the emergency vehicles converging on the front of the building. After Gunn tossed the keys up, Wesley snatched them out of the air. Faster than the water churning through the adjacent flood canal, they assumed their respective positions. 

Tires trundling over the rain-slicked asphalt, the GTX fishtailed away. 

Gunn clicked the radio off, sat back and bolted both arms across his chest. "Search and rescuin' don't give off the same sense of accomplishment it used to," he said with finality.   
  


Wesley rolled up the window and shifted the car back in to 'Drive' in preparation for the parting of the Abbey gates. 

"He knew. He knew what they were," Maria cackled, rocking side to side. 

Bending an elbow over the top of the front seat helped Gunn steer around to face her. "What *what* were? Those sheepy things? Or the things you were talkin' 'bout with the teeth?" 

"The babies!" The backs of her singed hands flew up to her cheeks. Beneath her wild eyes, they imitated upside down armadillo bugs sunning their legs. 

Wesley's focus fell from the rear view mirror. As he pulled through the opening and onto the arbored drive, his eyes briefly made contact with Gunn's. "Obviously, they weren't human," he said. 

A song began, mingling with the interior noise. "I still love them, anyway," Maria sighed after a verse. "Wouldn't love have cured what wasn't right with them?" 

-0- 

Idling side by side, the Plymouth's and Caddy's exhaust-off blustered into the alley. 

"It's after midnight already. Let's go, people!" Wesley shook the leather cuff over his watch and closed the driver's side door on Gunn. Two fingers motioned, ushering the Plymouth in reverse. 

Cocooning his son, Angel flipped his head at the knitting machine. "I think that's going to stay on eternally." 

Saul, tucking his shirttails into his waistband, didn't look back. "I don't hear the cows complaining." 

"Ech!" Rube clapped his brother on the back. "This area isn't zoned for cattle. If Allstate ever finds out -- " 

Sanding his hands, Joe censured, "Who's calling the insurance people, Rube? You? Stop with all the kvetching and get your toches in the car." 

Saul, finagling one last gander at the infant, pursed his lips. "Mazel tov, kaddishel," he puckered. 

Patiently, Joe waited for his turn -- until Angel popped back up from picking something off the floor. 

"Did someone lose this?" Angel asked. 

Mystified, Saul held out his palm. "Mable's charm." He smiled. "Lookit, here, Joe. Mable's charm." 

Joe tapped the tarnished golden harp. "She lost that the day you gave it to her." 

Rube cleared his throat. "So, Mr. Detective Angel -- " He exaggerated scraping the floor with a sneaker toe, "You think you can spot where we lost that nine hundred, forty-seven thousand dollar knitting business?" 

"Rube!" Saul closed his hand and swiped under his nose before hooking his fist at Angel. "Here. Finders keepers." 

Under the rounds of all eyes, Angel recoiled. His fingers unfurled, fanning out until the entirety of his hands had swaddled the foundling. Legs apart, chest flaring, his head sheered until -- from hipline to hairline, he'd doubled in breadth. Further effecting the illusion, his brows crimped, imbuing his features with severity. 

"Oy, you kids! So easy with the offendage." Rube swiped his brother's hand clean and tucked the charm into Angel's chest pocket. "It's for the boy. For later, when you tell him about this farmisht of a day." 

Joe planted a kiss on the blanket with no idea of where it landed. "A keepsake to remind him that his papa never let him down once." 

Head tipped towards one shoulder, Wesley vied for Angel's attention. But the sheepish vampire, cuddling his son, had buried his chagrin. 

The Plymouth tooted. "THANKS FOR THE EATS!" Gunn called out, waving pointedly from the alley. 

Cordelia finished counting the last of the stars visible between the rooftops. 

"I bet if it was daytime, we'd see a big ol' rainbow from here instead," Fred gushed. "I remember the skies on Pylea after a monsoon and they were glorious!" 

While wriggling her fingertips at the departing Cadillac, Cordy used the last of her smiles. "Fred?" 

Like some lame drill team member, Fred didn't acknowledge her -- too busy twirling the ends of her shawl and heel-toe-heeling through the puddles. 

"Fred!" Cordelia nipped. 

"What Cordy?" Although almost still emaciated enough to do it, Fred couldn't quite hide behind the lank of hair falling over one eye. 

"I can't hear myself," Cordy replied. She inhaled and managed to pull one last grin from reserves. Because of the cold, crisp air, her face felt ready to crack. 

She beamed. 

Patting flushed cheeks, Fred warmed her hands. "See ya in the car," she winked with a skip. 

While the loading door raked through its tracks and dropped into place, Angel protected the baby's ears. "So, Wes. Next stop, Hyperion?" 

Wesley rattled the door to test it. Turning, he took in the cloudless sky. "I thought we've already gone over the subject of who's making the decisions around here, Angel," he joked, repositioning his glasses by one lens. 

Out of the deep, twilight blue, something fell on Wesley's shoulder. Jarred, he looked down and was touched to find Angel's forehead there. 

-0- 

Wesley rapped on the bedroom door. Lightly, ever so lightly. Since rising from their few hours of sleep, they'd all been behaving differently -- him, Gunn, Cordy, Fred, and Lorne. They'd begun speaking more quietly, treading hesitantly if they even bothered to move at all. The situation was terrifying -- to fear that one misdirected step would chase events that much more quickly towards inevitability. 

Yet, with the all of mankind doomed, they had fashioned a safe haven for an unaware child. 

"Aggie's got coffee prepared -- " Suffocating, he couldn't remember pausing for the sleepy "It's OK" before nudging the door open. He immediately tended to the thermostat next to the door and dropped it from the roasting ninety degrees to a more manageable -- at least for breathing -- seventy-eight. 

"I'm afraid that I've officially become acclimated to Southern California, Angel. These days a sixty degree morning is as unbearable as a blizzard." He winced. "And when did I begin thinking in units of degrees?" 

"Too bad, Wes. Now they'll never let you back into England," Angel teased. Standing at the foot of the unrumpled bed, he swayed gently, nuzzling the writhing bundle. "Baby just woke up." 

All remnants of the torrents had disappeared except for the sunlight encapsulated on the window behind the vampire and the boy. Wesley bore witness to a father and son at the first true dawn of their relationship. The effect wasn't unlike a stained glass portrait. There was nothing to be seen beyond the figures and each droplet's dioramic depiction of life -- petrified for a heartbeat, before breaking, colliding, and drizzling down the pane. 

To liberty or damnation, unbeknown. 

Wesley exhibited the bottle in his hand. "I brought -- " 

Angel became the picture of perplexity. "But he ate before he went to sleep." 

After pressing the door into it's frame, Wesley closed their distance. "It's a biological fact, Angel, that babies need to eat. And eat often," he finished, flubbing the bottle's nipple over the infant's lips. Relief set in when the child agreeably began suckling. 

"My miracle baby," Angel said for the millionth time. He reluctantly situated his hungry son into Wesley's hammocked arms. 

Wesley's unloosed a half-dimple; the other half had fallen asleep shortly after Darla had gone into labor. "Your mystery baby, you mean," he said, dipping his arm to assure the best natal support. 

"Hey, little guy." Angel tutted and timidly poked the pudgy tum with his index finger. 

Upon reconciling that Angel was not only father, but big brother and grandfather at the same time, Wesley relegated the disturbing lineage to the back of his mind. "You know, Angel, 'Little Guy' may be fine while he's hand size, but is probably going to give him quite the complex when he's old enough to date." 

He'd been anticipating Angel's spoken answer, not the astonishing resemblance that surfaced. Exactly like the baby, Angel wore a guileless, blank face. "He needs a name?" Wesley prompted. "You know... Angel, Junior?" 

Brown eyes glinting with enchantment, Angel took stock of his son's appetite. "He needs a real name. One that'll direct him towards who he'll eventually be. A good name. Not like mine." 

To avoid laughing, Wesley chewed the inside of one cheek. "Well, if he's to be a child of Prophecy, Angel, he'll need something a bit more -- " 

"Scrollish?" 

Wesley nodded. "You know, like Grooselug." He held onto his breath. 

Eyes rocketing towards the ceiling, Angel lambasted, "OK. You agree with me, right? That is *the* lamest name in the world?" 

"As Cordelia has been quick to remind me, I've heard lamer, Angel," Wesley laughed. 

Even the baby laughed, or so it seemed. Lifting the bottle away, Wesley uncovered another trait -- a command of attention. He briefly anticipated the lifetime of enjoyment he'd derive from measuring Angel's learning curve of learning to share the limelight. 

Angel sawed the back of an index along the cleft in his chin. "Something more like Gunn's. Charles -- that's a king's name." 

"I shudder at the unfortunate nickname -- Chuck?" 

"Could be the reason Gunn's so good at fighting," Angel quipped, confused by having the rejected bottle pushed into his receptive hand and his towel snapped away. 

Wesley redraped the tea towel over his own shoulder and vertically cradled the baby. He began walking while patting the baby's shoulders. "You could research your Irish roots, perhaps. Dillon or Sean?" 

Shadowing the pair, Angel strained to hear -- that *necessary* burp! -- the signal he could get his son back... 

To Angel's "Uh!" Wesley paused. Comprehending the anxious reach, he sympathized with the mortification plastered across his friend's face. Drawing a breath deeper than any responsibility he'd ever known, Wesley glanced over his shoulder. 

His heel had encountered dawn's encroachment. 

The sun's intensity boiled his perspiration. "Angel..." Wesley risked brushing his chapped lips across the baby's earlobe. "We won't know how human he actually is -- " 

Fingers strumming his thighs, Angel neared in profile. "It's only been one day, Wesley. That's not long enough," he pleaded. 

"One day, Angel. And then one week. Shall his first birthday come and go -- " 

Wesley fell silent, stunned. 

Not by way of genetics nor inborn predilections, this infant would eventually become the product of his greatest influence. Angel's head had tilted, gifting his dark, matte irises a brilliant dimension; his lips had parted with the promise to beseech with that sincere, modulating voice; his expressive hands remained low at his sides, slightly turned in, unnaturally inactive. Following the infant's pace, Angel respired, issuing that air of indefinite obedience with each reassuring breath. 

Wesley clenched his eyes and wished away the overwhelming desire to relent. 

Another droplet skirted down the window during the baby's phlegmy sigh. 

Embosoming the child, Wesley refocused, making mute resolutions while Angel's face neared. 

Eyes closed, lips moist, the vampire kissed his son's forehead. And in the imprint of his affection, thumbed two lines. "Now." 

Unable to resist the slight pressure, Wesley listed backwards. "Angel, stop! Not before the baby has a name." 

Sweeping clear of the boundary's danger, Angel turned his back. The offered portion of his face had been chiseled with resignation. "Unless he can play in the sunlight, Wesley, he doesn't need a name." 

-0- 

Holtz managed each wide, low step despite his burden -- a tune, heavy upon his heart. 

"I shouldn't admit it, but I've just got to share. I *didn't* see that coming," Sahjhan chuckled. 

Holtz stopped. And he meditated upon Sahjhan's ignorance. 

Sahjhan got to the landing and looked right, left. Checking over his shoulder, he sneered, "Don't you think you've shopped enough in the hijinks department for one day? Come on!" 

Tip resting upon stone, Holtz balanced the sword against the wall. After dropping both hands into his coat pockets, he settled back on one heel and peered down his nose. "For whom am I liege?" he inquired. 

"That's nothing you need to know to get your job done." Sahjhan frantically directed two of the Grapplars back up the stairs. 

"Very well, Sahjhan. But do let me know when you find out?" When Holtz reclaimed the weapon, the burly demons halted in their tracks. He thundered past the Grapplars, gusted through Sahjhan and around the bend. Exhaling, he charged ahead, stepping into the stale scent of his own breath, as yet unsweetened by revenge. 

-0-   
  
evancomo@netscape.net   
**Angel's Journal:** http://angeljournal.mybravenet.com/index.htm


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